Trivia

1001 Video Games

Cartridge

Micro Machines for the NES was available in two different formats, the first was a regular cartridge, and the second was a compact cartridge which required the Aladdin Deck Enhancer. The idea behind the compact cartridges was to take circuitry that was common to all NES cartridges and remove it placing it in the Deck Enhancer, leaving the game cartridge containing only parts that were unique to each game (mainly the game code.) Since the game cartridge now contained fewer parts, the manufacturing cost (and thus the cost to the consumer) was to be lower. To play the game you would plug the compact cartridge into the deck enhancer which would form a complete NES cartridge which could then be used in the normal fashion. The idea never took off and very few games appeared in compact cartridge form (all of those that did were by Codemasters, who also invented the Aladdin Deck Enhancer.)